As is known in the art, there is a need for low profile high efficiency multi-band antennas for satellite communication (SATCOM) on aircraft, ships, and vehicles. Many, if not most conventional SATCOM antennas have circular apertures and the height of radomes covering the antennas is sometimes significantly greater than is desirable.
In aircraft applications, for example, it is desirable to utilize antenna and radomes having a low profile to reduce drag. In ship and ground-based vehicle applications, a low profile antenna can be desirable to reduce observability. For these applications, low profile antennas having high efficiency are very desirable.
Furthermore, since various satellites operate in different frequency bands, it is desirable for SATCOM antennas to be capable of operating multiple different frequency bands. Multi-band antennas capable of operating over two or three different frequency bands reduces the number of antennas needed for communication with various satellites which operate in different frequency bands. Thus, the use of antennas capable of multi-band operation reduces both the total system cost and the space needed for the antennas.
Existing so-called low profile antennas for SATCOM applications either have a large swept volume, or operate only at single frequency band resulting in systems having a high cost, or having low antenna efficiency.